A Brief History
On May 14, 1796, English scientist Edward Jenner used pus scraped from a cowpox pustule to inoculate his gardener’s son, the first ever vaccine used. Cowpox is a disease similar to smallpox, but much more mild, similar to chicken pox.
Digging Deeper
Jenner and others observed the fact that milkmaids frequently got cowpox, but never seemed to get smallpox, and smallpox was a deadly disease that killed about 20 percent of Europe’s population (with about 60 percent of that population getting the disease).
Purposely infecting the boy with cowpox and after the boy recovered exposing him to smallpox resulted in no smallpox infection. Voila! History’s first vaccine. Other people had observed this cause and effect before Jenner, but Jenner being a doctor and a researcher made the practice official. Widespread use of smallpox vaccines resulted in a decrease in the spread of this killer virus and by 1979 smallpox was declared eradicated from the earth by the World Health Organization.
In a 2002 countrywide BBC poll, the United Kingdom voted Jenner one of history’s 100 Greatest Britons. Just to be on the safe side, scientists keep samples of smallpox under lock and key just in case they are needed if there is any new outbreak of smallpox from an overlooked source.
Thanks to researchers like Jenner, Pasteur, Salk and Sabin, we have a myriad of vaccines today to inoculate us against forms of plague, forms of hepatitis, tetanus, rabies, various viruses, and a host of other maladies. Sometimes ignorance and false rumors result in resistance to the use of vaccines, such as the Lucasville Prison Riot in Ohio and the reluctance of backward peoples in the third world (mainly Africa and Asia) that are afraid to be inoculated for fear the vaccine is a nefarious American plot to poison them. False rumors in the US have been promulgated about the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine (that prevents genital warts and the onset of Cervical cancer) making parents reluctant to have their girls vaccinated.
Edward Jenner is remembered and celebrated as the “Father of Vaccination” and it has been said that he saved more lives than any other person (although one would think Louis Pasteur would be right there with him.) If you ever travel overseas, especially in the US military, you will get so many inoculations you will be stunned! Cracked fact: American pioneers used a form of biological warfare by giving Native-Americans blankets that had been intentionally infested with smallpox in order to kill off the Native population. This technique was fiendishly successful and millions of Native-Americans died of smallpox.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Marrin, Albert. Dr. Jenner and the Speckled Monster: The Discovery of the Smallpox Vaccine. Dutton Juvenile, 2002.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="2180 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=2180">28 Comments
I did not know that the official origin of vaccinations comes from England! Vaccinations are important and parents should vaccinate their kids because it not only takes care of them but others as well. The most striking fact from this article is the last one. It is horrible that early Americans gave Native Americans infected blankets.
Pretty cool, I did not know that, that would be the beginning to our first discovery of vaccinations.
Vaccinations are beyond important, and it is amazing that Jenner has saved more lives than any other person via the smallpox vaccination. I would never have guessed that an inventor of vaccinations would hold that title. I am curious how many years after the fact it would take for someone to invent a vaccine if Jenner hadn’t already done so.
The advancement of medicine amazes me more than the advancement in technology! Vaccinations are really important and prevent us today from getting many kinds of diseases. Jenner was definitely a smart man and we should all be thankful that he was able to observe his surroundings in such detail and come up with the idea of vaccinations.
It is interesting to read articles like these discussing early medicine and vaccinations. It had to be so difficult to live during a time when medicine was not established. People were constantly being experimented on, and different solutions to problems were being tried probably everyday. It had to be a remarkable feeling to discover that an attempt to cure or fight disease, such as the one in the article, worked and forward progress towards modern medicine had been made.
Very interesting article of Edward Jenner a man who has saved thousands of lives due to his discovery of the Vaccination. As health and medicine have evolved their has been many different kinds of diseases that can be treated through vaccination all because of Jenner and the cowpox.
How horrible that it used to be an acceptable practice to purposefully infect children with smallpox in hopes they would survive and be inoculated. Thank goodness for Edward Jenner and his observation that cowpox can inoculate a person against smallpox. I did not know smallpox was declared a dead disease in the 1970s. Hopefully in the future, more diseases will be declared dead thanks to jenners observations that led to vaccines.
It must have been a big risk to infect the gardener’s son with smallpox after the cowpox vaccine. Luckily it worked and medicine took off and ran with the idea. Thankfully today we have vaccinations that save countless lives. England was right to name Jenner as one of the top Brits in history.
The first vaccine was essential in modern medicine today. I cannot believe that the first vaccine was performed in the 18th century. This advance in medicine has saved so many lives since it occurred in the 1790s.
It takes risks to discover amazing things and Edward Jenner did just that. I feel as though the young boy that survived the first vaccine should be celebrated as well for surviving a big risk.
I wonder how it was decided that the son of his gardener would be the guinea pig for the first vaccination. Did his father volunteer him? Did he volunteer? Something could have gone very wrong so it seems as though this was a very big risk. But everything worked with the cowpox infection and then they had a vaccine for smallpox that helped in many areas.
I feel the boy who had the vaccine should be more in the conversation. That is as risky as it gets. Another story of courage.
I think Jenner took a huge risk by exposing the boy to cowpox and then to smallpox. Something could have gone wrong and the boy could have lost his life. I am glad though that this risk was taken and that this risk is the reason for the many vaccinations we have now. There is no reward without risk.
Edward Jenner is a true hero. He took a risk and leap of faith, qualities of great scientists.
It is amazing how the most successful part of Jenner’s research was observation. Observation of how milkmaids with cowpox never seemed to get smallpox led him to create the first vaccination. He opened the door to understanding how the body was affected by certain diseases and how to prevent them.
To vaccinate a boy with an illness and then open him to the most deadly disease in the world at that time was extremely dangerous, but obviously worked out. I still get vaccines today so Jenner’s legacy will probably live on forever.
Without risk, no reward. Jenner trusted his gut and led us to the many beneficial vaccines that we have today.
It is interesting that Jenner used cowpox to defeat smallpox, because cowpox is way less harmful than smallpox. I would think that he would try something way stronger to defeat a harmful disease such as smallpox. But without him, who knows how much this would put us back in the medical field.
I think the Cracked Fact is terrible, and crazy that it was successful. I do not know what to say other than to give thanks to Jenner for vaccinations!
Jenner was probably so worried about what the outcome would be with this vaccination, clearly looking at it today it was a success and gave way to what we have today in vaccinations. That cracked fact though is messed up.
This seems like a very risky test to put on a small boy. That is nice to know that scientists are keeping smallpox in a lock box so that they can be prepared if there is another outbreak to occur.
Can’t believe he vaccinated the little boy with that disease, I guess the man knew his stuff and trusted his instincts. It’s very interesting to hear stories like this that in turn helped the world tremendously and very nice to hear that doctors are keeping some of that disease in lock for in any case there is another outbreak.
I could not imagine being the test subject for a new vaccine or medical treatment. The amount of trust and respect they had for their doctors must have been extremely high. But it paid off and led to the science of vaccinations today.
I wonder if the boy was a willing test subject or not because I would not have volunteered.
Stories like these blow my mind! That boy must have had some courage to be a test subject or something like this. I love hearing the stories about how things come about in this world. IT is amazing that this test was successful.
It takes a high level of awareness to make the connection that it was rare for milkmaids to not contract smallpox. It’s amazing what you can see when you look!
Thank you Jenner for your contribution! I always find it interesting that we keep samples on reserve just in case of an unexpected outbreak again. One may wonder how safe those samples are.
Scientists and researchers need to take risks in order to advance ourselves in technology. Obviously, some are dangerous, but most of the time they are necessary.